Modi congratulates Japan on successful lunar landing

NEW DELHI: India's ISRO is looking forward to cooperating with Japanese agency JAXA in the field of space exploration, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said while congratulating Japanese counterpart Fumio Kishida on Tokyo's successful lunar landing.

Japan made history on Saturday by becoming only the fifth country to land a spacecraft on the moon, a mission that was helmed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency.

Prime Minister Modi congratulated PM Kishida for JAXA's first soft moon landing, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said on Sunday.

"He further said that the India Space Research Organisation (ISRO) looks forward to cooperating with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) in space exploration," it said.

Japan's smart Lander for Investigating Moon (Slim) landed on the lunar surface near an equatorial crater that was hailed as a major milestone in the country's space exploration.

Modi posted on X on Saturday night: "Congratulations Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and everyone at JAXA on achieving Japan's first soft Moon landing. India looks forward to our cooperation in space exploration between ISRO and JAXA."

The other countries that made soft-landing on the moon are India, the US, China and the erstwhile Soviet Union.